“The world has become a place where we measure the tragedy of a war by the price of a gallon of gas, rather than the silence of a stolen generation"
The above statement reflects the cold reality of modern geopolitics: we care more about the cost of living than the cost of dying.
Amidst the noise of the growing missile and drone attacks in the ongoing war in West Asia everyone is absolutely losing their minds over how this little fireworks show might bruise the global economy or make the geopolitical stock market a bit twitchy.
While "experts" hyperventilate over oil prices and "twitchy" stock markets amidst missile attacks in the escalating conflict in the Middle East, the decades-long struggle of the Iranian people for basic freedom has been demoted to a footnote.
Pundits can hear a drone from thousands of miles away but remain stone-deaf to the screams of a democratic revolution.
Caring is simply too inconvenient for the perfectly polished brands of these influencers. To acknowledge the Iranian people’s pain, caught between a brutal regime and a global chess match, would cause a "narrative malfunction" in their pre-packaged political takes.
This is the ultimate "Gamification of Suffering”, in which Iranians have become non-Player Characters (NPCs) in a high-stakes match between "Pro-US" and "Anti-US" factions.
The "Pro-US" Team uses strategic opportunism. They cheer for "Democracy" only as a side-quest to weaken a rival, only because a democratic Iran would likely stop being a headache (read a purported Threat) for Washington.
To them, a dead innocent school child doesn't merit a press release of condolence or condemnation, but a scratch on an oil refinery is an international emergency and a pain to voice condemnation.
The "Anti-US" Team acts as narrative gatekeepers. They view the regime as a "necessary evil" against the West. To them, Iranian protesters are just "broken code" or CIA plants. They are willing to sacrifice millions of lives just to keep an anti-US flag flying on the map.
In this game, Iran isn’t a country; it’s a buffer zone with a gas tank. The current war is a glitzy smokescreen for regional control and oil reserves, not a rescue mission. Both sides are Gatekeeping Empathy, one cares only if you’re useful, the other only if you’re on-script.
In the middle are actual human beings who just want to live without being oppressed for dissent or bombed for a headline. But the players are so busy arguing over controlling the region that they’ve forgotten the characters on the screen are actually bleeding.
Unless we stop viewing Iran through a partisan lens, we are just watching a tragedy on an infinite loop. Until we decide that a society’s right to breathe is more valuable than a barrel’s price to trade, the "experts" aren't analysts—they’re just the accountants of a tragedy.
